Electronics

It's impossible to categorically state which breakthrough has had the greatest impact on our modern world, but harnessing electricity would have to be right up there. It's hard for most of us to imagine our lives without it – you wouldn't be reading this for a start. From electric lighting to instantaneous global communications, the evolution of electronics is far from over – keep up to date with the latest developments here.

Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have developed an electronic skin embedded with a host of sensors that can be bent and twisted to custom fit its owner. If it gets damaged, the e-skin can be healed, and it can be completely recycled at the end of its useful life.​​

​Less than a year ago, Samsung unveiled a cinema-sized LED screen capable of 4K resolution, and followed this in July with its first commercial installation at a theater in Seoul, South Korea. Now the company has revealed a 3D version at the Integrated Systems Europe 2018 expo in Amsterdam.​

​If an electronic device containing sensitive information were to fall into the wrong hands, it would be good if there were a way of remotely disabling it. That's why scientists have developed a method of vaporizing electronic circuits, without laying a hand on the actual device.

The new HyperDrive USB-C Hub is quite possibly the only extra connectivity accessory you'll ever need. As well as turning one USB-C port into a variety of eight ports, the device is a wireless charging stand for iPhone and Android smartphones.

One technology with a lot of potential when it comes to energy storage is the lithium-metal battery. Engineers have come up with a new design that address some of its shortcomings, making use of crumpled balls of graphene that fall into line as a scaffold when the battery is charging.​

​Learning about electronics from a book might seem like a step backward in a world of instructional videos and snap together kits. But Paris-based startup Papier Machine doesn't think that at all, launching the first in a series of paper books containing circuit-building projects on Kickstarter.​

​We've seen a number of frankly bizarre time-keepers over the years. Architect and hobby tinkerer Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi joins that strange clock party with the Edgytokei, where dancing mechanical arms show hand positions on a clock face ... except there's no clock face.​

The Consumer Electronics Show, the year's biggest tech expo, has been running all week in Las Vegas, and the biggest names in the business have been showing off their new gadgets and hardware for 2018. Now that the dust is settling, we'd like to present some of the highlights.

We've seen a number of cards over the years designed to give owners access to different payment options from the same, single slice of plastic. The Dynamics Wallet Card is promised to improve on these in a few ways thanks to a programmable display and mobile phone chip.